Cricket: Carry on like this and you will do a Yorkshire

The captain was so physically and mentally drained at the end of last summer that he seriously considered a return to the ranks even though he had just led Sussex to their first-ever Championship.

There might have been times over the last few weeks when Adams wondered if he made the right decision. He will certainly need another long lie down come September if he is able to pull off a feat which looks more difficult than winning the biggest prize of the lot ever did.

The side which swept all before them a year ago will return to four-day action against Kent next Friday languishing in next-to-bottom place in the first division and in danger of following their first Championship with the unthinkable, relegation back to Division Two.

It is called 'doing a Yorkshire' on the circuit. It happened to the Tykes in 2001 and, worryingly, they seem to be no nearer to taking their seat again at cricket's top table.

Apart from a blip at the end of 2000, when they went from top to bottom of the second division in a matter of weeks, the Sussex story has been one of steady improvement since Adams and director of cricket Peter Moores joined forces in 1998, culminating in last September's unforgettable triumph.

Now the management and the players they lead face an even greater challenge trying to turn around a season which is in serious danger of going belly-up on all fronts.

Sussex supporters are a funny lot. For many, last year's success was a glorious but wholly unexpected bonus. "I can die happy now," said one as he poured warm champagne into his plastic cup last September when the title was clinched.

Like many others, he will turn up whether the team is winning or losing because he loves the game and he loves his county.

So do the players. Their expectation levels have risen massively following last year's success, unlike those who have dozed peacefully in the deckchairs while Sussex wickets have clattered.

Winning ten Championship games in 2003, some of them by cricket's equivalent of a short head, should have infused the squad with the confidence and self belief to meet any challenge head-on.

The reality is that too many of them are performing well below their best, unrecognisable from the side which swept all before them a year ago.

Take the Championship. In eight games no one, apart from Adams and Ian Ward, has made a hundred and no one else is averaging over 31.

The fact that Mushtaq Ahmed is top of the bowling averages is not a surprise, that he is fourth in the batting stats is cause for alarm.

Sussex built their success last year on posting big first-innings totals which gave Mushtaq impunity to attack. That has only happened once so far this summer and Sussex went on to beat favourites Lancashire on their own patch with a day to spare.

The leg-spinner still took 30 wickets in the first half of the season, but he will not be the matchwinner of last year unless his team-mates give him runs to play with. Meanwhile, heaven help Sussex if Adams and Ward get out of nick.

Sussex have taken 20 wickets in a match once, at Old Trafford. They need the sort of sustained hostility Mohammad Akram showed in that game much more often and for James Kirtley to rediscover the rhythm which has made him the county's most consistent bowler of the past seven years. It should not be too much to ask.

It was taken as read that the recruitment of Akram and Ward would strengthen the title-winning squad. But cricket is all about the individual battles played within the framework of the team game and the simple fact is that Sussex are being out-batted and out-bowled too often at the moment.

There have been some good bowling performances this season and some decent batting displays, but only at Old Trafford did they marry them both together in the same game.

There are mitigating factors. There usually are. No side has lost more days to bad weather this season while a wrong call at the toss has forced Sussex to play catch-up on batsmen-friendly surfaces on more than one occasion.

But every county has a bad luck story to tell at some stage and the moment the management start using outside influences as an excuse things will look bleak. It will not happen.

Perhaps the truth is that Sussex in 2004 are suffering by comparison to last year when everything seemed to fall nicely into place.

Mushtaq was determined to prove he was not a busted flush and exposed woeful English technique against quality wrist spin.

All the batsmen enjoyed a purple patch at some point in the season, injuries tended to occur when there was no Championship match to worry about and the selectors rarely came calling. Adams called correctly on occasions when the toss was important and the sun seemed to shine all summer long. Well it did in our corner of the country anyway.

Moores believed the month-long break from Championship cricket had come at the right time following the defeat by Gloucestershire at the end of June.

Instead, a series of poor one-day performances by more or less the same players has further undermined already brittle confidence. Six defeats out of seven followed. Losing, like winning, is habit-forming as Sussex are discovering and with every setback it gets harder to bounce back.

Already out of the C&G Trophy and Twenty20 Cup, their remaining ambition, if that is the right word, in the totesport League is to clamber out of the bottom four and avoid first-class opposition in the early rounds of next year's C&G.

Mind you, a Devon or Dorset would hardly consider beating Sussex as much cause for celebration at the moment.

Of course, it is not too late for things to change. The side appeared to have turned their fortunes around when they won a one-day game they were losing against Somerset in early June and followed it up a few days later with that victory at Old Trafford.

Two weeks later, following three depressing days at Arundel, it was back to square one. The dismal run in one-day cricket which has followed seems only to have put Sussex's shortcomings into even sharper focus.

But surely, though, the classy Murray Goodwin will come good? Surely Kirtley will rediscover his old zest?

Surely youngsters like Tim Ambrose and Matt Prior will once again show the talent and temperament which marked them down as international cricketers of the future not so long ago?

Surely Richard Montgomerie and Tony Cottey can bring their experience and quality to bear and surely Robin Martin-Jenkins can marry the undoubted improvements in his bowling with more consistent batting as well.

That's a lot of questions, the answers to which we will find out in the next two months.

We will also discover a lot more about these Sussex players than we did when nothing seemed to go wrong 12 months ago.